(I think it may be correct to have multiple overlapping-and-or-concentric circles, where there’s a village that’s “Mission + friends/family/neighbors”, which realistically also just grows organically over time)
And then there’s something that maybe is better to call a “Mission community” than “Mission village” which isn’t trying to be a village per se, but is just making sure that people involved in the Mission get the opportunity to connect more over Mission stuff specifically. (Which is probably less public facing, but which maybe occasionally has more open invite events so that people who are interested in transitioning into the Mission have opportunity to do so).
If Mission requires a lot of work (or isn’t paid well, so you need an extra job to pay your bills), people will have to reduce their involvement when they have kids. And most people are going to have kids at some moment of their lives.
On the other hand, Village without kids… should more properly be called Hotel or Campus.
Thus, Village helps Mission by keeping currently inactive people close, so even if you cannot use their work at the moment, you can still use some of their expertise. Also, the involvement doesn’t have to be “all or nothing”; people with school-age kids can be part-time involved.
Mission without Village will keep losing tacit knowledge, and will probably have to make stronger pressure on keeping and recruiting members. (Which can become a positive feedback loop, if members start leaving because of increased pressure, and the pressure increases as a reaction to the threat of losing members.)
“Real Mission Work” generally takes the form of an actual full-time job (many new projects start off as a weird scrappy hybrid of “random project / startup”, but IMO basically the goal is to transition into serious fulltime work once you’ve demonstrated that you are capable enough to get funding)
Mission work varies in how much it’s like a startup, and how much it’s like an ordinary non-startup-job. Startup-like mission-orgs are probably hard to work at if you have kids. (I think I recall Paul Graham or someone claiming that you can pick two: Startup, Hobbies, Kids. So you might have kids but not otherwise have a life, and shouldn’t have both parents be startup-ing)
I think I still generally agree with the points you make about keeping inactive people in the circle, and that a village without kids makes more sense to see through the Campus lens.
I agree that the village basically needs to be #1 (and could see a case for something broader than that)
(I think it may be correct to have multiple overlapping-and-or-concentric circles, where there’s a village that’s “Mission + friends/family/neighbors”, which realistically also just grows organically over time)
And then there’s something that maybe is better to call a “Mission community” than “Mission village” which isn’t trying to be a village per se, but is just making sure that people involved in the Mission get the opportunity to connect more over Mission stuff specifically. (Which is probably less public facing, but which maybe occasionally has more open invite events so that people who are interested in transitioning into the Mission have opportunity to do so).
If Mission requires a lot of work (or isn’t paid well, so you need an extra job to pay your bills), people will have to reduce their involvement when they have kids. And most people are going to have kids at some moment of their lives.
On the other hand, Village without kids… should more properly be called Hotel or Campus.
Thus, Village helps Mission by keeping currently inactive people close, so even if you cannot use their work at the moment, you can still use some of their expertise. Also, the involvement doesn’t have to be “all or nothing”; people with school-age kids can be part-time involved.
Mission without Village will keep losing tacit knowledge, and will probably have to make stronger pressure on keeping and recruiting members. (Which can become a positive feedback loop, if members start leaving because of increased pressure, and the pressure increases as a reaction to the threat of losing members.)
“Real Mission Work” generally takes the form of an actual full-time job (many new projects start off as a weird scrappy hybrid of “random project / startup”, but IMO basically the goal is to transition into serious fulltime work once you’ve demonstrated that you are capable enough to get funding)
Mission work varies in how much it’s like a startup, and how much it’s like an ordinary non-startup-job. Startup-like mission-orgs are probably hard to work at if you have kids. (I think I recall Paul Graham or someone claiming that you can pick two: Startup, Hobbies, Kids. So you might have kids but not otherwise have a life, and shouldn’t have both parents be startup-ing)
I think I still generally agree with the points you make about keeping inactive people in the circle, and that a village without kids makes more sense to see through the Campus lens.